The last time I heard Patrick Smith play, the 21 year-old Kanata-raised saxophonist was home from Toronto and tearing it up at the 2016 Ottawa Jazz Festival’s jam session. He was soloing on Freight Trane, Tommy Flanagan’s Ab Bird blues, demonstrating lots of bebop-based eloquence and hard swinging.

Smith will be back in Ottawa in a few days, but in a very different context.

On Dec. 19 at Le Petit Chicago in Hull and Dec. 21 at Pressed on Gladstone Avenue, Smith will play with the co-op trio Saorsa, which also includes guitarist Dan Pitt and drummer Harry Vetro. The bass-less group doesn’t dispense with compositions, but it’s more about free and unfettered music, linked to everyone from Ornette Coleman to the late Paul Motian’s trio to saxophonist Chris Speed.

Below, the members of Saorsa, who also play in Guelph, Toronto and Montreal between now and Dec. 21, introduce themselves and their musical moorings (and demystify their band name).

Tell me the story of how this group formed. Why is it called Saorsa?

Smith: Back in early July, I had just gotten back from a great week in Ottawa doing the Jazz Festival’s Youth Summit program. After that inspiring week, I had a really strong urge to play with people. One of the first sessions I played when I got back was with Harry and Dan. We played completely free and it felt amazing! We all agreed that we worked well together, all three of us are into similar music and we all really liked playing and hanging out with each other. We booked two shows in September and have been rehearsing every week since and have played four shows in Toronto so far. I’ll let our guitarist Dan Pitt explain the name since he came up with it.

Pitt: A common misconception is that this band name is made up and doesn’t mean anything (around U of T’s jazz program people have joked about how we’re called Samosa which annoys me a little). After the group started we needed a name and while trying to look for a meaningful band name I went back to my heritage for inspiration. I found the Scottish Gaelic word Saorsa which translates into meaning liberation and freedom. As a band we can choose to play in time with chord changes or we can choose to not do that all. Sometimes both will happen within one piece! Liberation and freedom are the basis of how this group works and that’s why the band is called Saorsa.

Your material ranges from completely improvised sets to entirely original compositions and arrangements of music by Tom Rainey, Ornette Coleman and Paul Bley. Why? How would you describe those different aspects of the group’s playing? Or is it all just one thing?

Smith: For me, it’s all connected. Many of our compositions have some element of completely open improvisation but some do not. If there is any notated material presented to us, if we go into that open improvisation in that piece the open improv is based on that written material even though we’re not playing over changes and/or time. Obviously we approach each of our compositions differently but they are connected. In short, we try to sound like Saorsa no matter what we’re playing. I’ve found sometimes when we’re improvising with no guide of notation it really does feel like we’re playing a composed piece of music and vice versa. Personally I’m trying to bridge that gap with the group. In some cases, its very interesting if the audience might now know if there was a composed sketch involved or not. I saw Samuel Blaser play with Gerry Hemingway at the Rex recently and it blew my mind when he told me that every song in the set were his compositions. I had fully believed the band was just improvising. It is an interesting space to inhabit musically, if you can get to that level. In this band, sometimes we’ll start a set playing completely free and somehow it will get into a piece that we’ve rehearsed without sounding like a firm cue into it. I find it interesting how connected the two sides of the improvisation/composition coin can be in this band. Composition is really just improvisation but slowed down. It’s a dogmatic statement but it is true in a really deep and profound way.

Given its repertoire and instrumentation, does the group have any role models or inspirations when it comes to a band sound or direction?

Smith: I’m a big fan of the Paul Motian Trio recordings (with Joe Lovano and Bill Frisell) and the classic Ornette Coleman recordings. In addition to those I think my approach in this group as an improviser and composer is highly influenced by NYC saxophonist Chris Speed’s groups Endangered Blood and in particular one of his older groups with Kurt Rosenwinkel that’s called Human Feel (this band has no bass player). Both of these groups have really affected the way I write and improvise with Saorsa. I had a life-changing concert experience shortly before this group was formed when I got to hear German free jazz legend Peter Brotzmann play in Toronto with Irish pedal steel guitarist Heather Leigh. Seeing that concert and listening to their record really influenced the way I approached improvising, especially with a guitarist.

Pitt: As an improviser and guitarist, I’ve always been inspired by bass-less trios with similar instrumentations as this band. Some of these include the Ron Miles Trio (with Bill Frisell and Brian Blade), Tom Rainey Trio with (Mary Halvorson and Ingrid Laubrock), BB&C (Nels Cline, Tim Berne, Jim Black), and of course the Paul Motian trio. Ornette Coleman is a big influence for this band (all three of us really like his music) but for me personally I really think Tim Berne’s music has affected how I approach this group as an improviser and composer.

Vetro: I’m really into the NYC drummer Tyshawn Sorey. He’s basically the only artist I’ve been listening to lately. Hearing Tyshawn play in New York really changed the way I think about music and the drums. Also, my teacher and mentor Nick Fraser has a ton of recorded material that has inspired me in addition to his live performances which are equally inspiring. Mark Ballyk is a drummer who was in Toronto for a while and is now in New York. Hearing Mark play live really inspired the way I approach the drum set, especially in this band.

Why skip having a bassist in the band?

Pitt: Well, like any situation where a band becomes a bass-less trio it started with a session where the bass player didn’t show up. At that point you can either all go home or you can play anyway. We weren’t planning to play standards so we decided to play trio. We played completely free and it went really well and all three of us agreed that it was an outstanding session and there was something special here. We decided to keep playing and starting bringing in compositions written specifically with the group and instrumentation in mind.

Smith: You can get some really interesting sounds with no bass player, especially with Dan being as skilled as he is at using his effects pedals. We don’t really try to cover the bass function on other instruments because that would destroy the point of having no bassist in the band. It provides a really fun and interesting challenge as a composer and an improviser and is part of what makes this band so interesting.

Vetro: For me, this music doesn’t really call for a bass player. We have such a tight musical connection that a bass player isn’t really necessary for this project.

Patrick, after hearing you sit in at the Ottawa Jazz Festival jam session in the summer, I thought that swinging, straight-ahead music was what you were about. Is Saorsa something different, or something related?

Smith: For me it’s all related. In the past year I’ve been very involved in improvised music. I know musicians say this a lot but I really do not like putting a genre on the music I play because I am interested in playing a lot of different kinds of music, and the music I play takes influences from everywhere. My study of improvised music informs how I approach straight-ahead music and my study of more straight-ahead jazz approaches the way I play improvised music. What matters more to me is that the music is inspired and played with intent, which is what got me interested in improvised music in the first place.

As a young player, what got me into jazz was that I couldn’t figure out the chords by ear. It seemed a good challenge to figure out through lead sheets. I started taking some lessons and I got really obsessed with the theoretical aspect, which for me meant memorizing every possible scale combination with any given chord. For a long time, my improvising was basically just plugging scales in over chords. When someone took away those chords and told me to play with no direction it was perplexing, uncomfortable and exhilarating. It forced me to finally listen to what the other members of the band were doing, which is what I should have been doing all the time! Over the last few years of working on music, playing free has really helped me become a better standards player because I’ve been forced to listen to the rest of the band but also to think really deeply with what I’m doing. It’s all related. I’m currently getting to play super-swinging, straight-ahead music as well as a lot of improvised music. Diversity is the spice of life and I’m quite grateful that I have the opportunity to play with so many different people in so many different styles.

“All three of us are highly opinionated on music and art,” you wrote me. Do tell! What the difference between good and bad music? Is Badbadnotgood any good? Is Toronto a good place to be an up-and-coming young improvising musician? What other opinions would you like to share?

Smith: I actually saw BBNG live at Ottawa Bluesfest a while back. I thought they sounded great but I didn’t really enjoy the rowdy crowds of teenagers. It is nice to see Canadian artists getting recognized internationally. The saxophonist who plays in that band is from Toronto and I heard him play on a doctorate student’s recital at U of T and he sounded amazing playing some really difficult and creative music.

In terms of opinions, I think that good music is a result of people really thinking deeply about their lives and humanity and trying to understand to what we can do to better the human experience. I know that this sounds philosophical but that’s what I’m really believing in right now. I try to live my life in search of meaning and understanding and my faith that we can change the world and make each other better. Human progress is really important to me. It’s very easy for people to stop searching for truth in their lives when they reach a place of stability. In my opinion it is the role of art to get people to think! Not just about music, but about everything.

When asked if he ever felt trapped musically during his career, Wayne Shorter said in an interview that he felt that the masses were trapped by the gatekeepers of broadcast radio and television and that he was trying to save them from that prison. Reading that interview with Wayne hit it home for me. I really feel that jazz music, especially artists who delve into this realm of open improvisation, is really important for the world as it gets people out of their comfort zone sonically and requires active listening. I like to think that if people come to a Saorsa show and don’t enjoy what they hear, they’ll at least walk away with an opinion and they will have thought about the music that they just heard.

Pitt: For me, the difference between good and bad music relies all on opinion. Music is such an emotional thing and when you get down to it, it’s about human connection. If people don’t like what we do that’s fine, at least they have an opinion.

Toronto is a really interesting scene. I don’t really want to give it this title but it seems to me to be a Canadian New York (of course Montreal has a great scene too). There’s a lot of really talented young musicians who all know each other and who are all interested in exploring new places and making stuff happen. There’s a real sense of community here and everybody is really friendly which is really important for up and coming musicians. It’s really inspiring around here and the fact that everything is super close-knit all around you is helpful and inspiring.

You’re recording an EP in January. What hopes and plans do you have for the group next year?

Smith: Once we get a recording done, I would like to keep growing as a band, improvising together, writing more music, and rehearsing so that we can shape our sound and make something really creative and unique. We have also talked about applying for a residency at the Banff Centre to work on our music and find new ways to play at that world class facility. Autobahn and the Tara Kannangara’s band, two groups made of Toronto musicians under age 30, have recently gone to do that residency and Autobahn’s latest record is evidence that it was an extremely worthwhile experience.

What else do you have on the go musically?

Smith: I currently lead and co-lead a few different groups. I have a five-horn octet that plays super-swinging and groove-influenced music, I’m looking to arrange more for that because the band sounds pretty good and we already have a bunch of music that myself and co-leader Zach Smith (trombone) have arranged.

I also have a standards trio with fellow Ottawa ex-pats Ben Heard (Bass) and Keagan Eskritt (Drums) that I’ve been playing with since we were in high school in Ottawa. That band is really fun and I’m hoping to get a few things going with the trio in the new year.

I’m also fairly active with a free jazz/noise duo (saxophone and drums) that I co-lead called SHDW CLN. We released an EP in the summer that you can find on Bandcamp. That group also does gigs with two collaborative actors who improvise with us in quartet formation (that iteration is called SHDCLNXLQ as the actors call their act XLQ).

I’m also playing fairly regularly with some Toronto jazz groups. The Will Hunt Quintet, a fun rock/funk band Brother Levon, and Chelsea McBride’s Socialist Night School, which is a great original-music big band led by Chelsea. That ensemble just recorded a full-length record that you should watch out for when it comes out in January. Right now, I’m busy doing freelance gigs and some teaching and writing a half-hour suite of music for jazz quartet and strings that is going to premier at my final recital at U of T in late February. I’m trying to balance all this with finishing my undergrad degree.

Saorsa plays:

Tuesday, Dec. 13, with Jim Lewis, at the Rex in Toronto at 9:30 p.m.Friday, Dec. 16, at Silence in Guelph at 9 p.m.Sunday, Dec. 18, at the Emmet Ray in Toronto at 7 p.m.Monday, Dec. 19, at Le Petit Chicago in Gatineau (Hull sector)Tuesday, Dec. 20, at Resonance Cafe in Montreal at 9 p.m.Wednesday, Dec. 21, at Pressed in Ottawa at 9 p.m.

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